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The Not A Pundit Halloween Episode
19 Plays1 year ago
From witch doctors to the world's most haunted stadiums, we have gone to the dark side for Halloween.
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Transcript
Introduction and Halloween Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm not into podcasts. Welcome, ghouls and guys, to a spooktacular edition of the Nada Pundit podcast.
Co-Hosts and Spooky Introductions
00:00:17
Speaker
Get ready to be bewitched by our irresistible topics as I am joined by Nada Pundit's own Connor Glennon.
00:00:26
Speaker
How are you pal? What an intro. Fair play to you. How long were you practicing that one in the mirror? I drove home saying that on repeat. And I am, of course, your witch doctor, your master of ceremonies, Killian Ginnady.
Cultural Celebrations of Halloween
00:00:43
Speaker
Yes, sir. And it is Halloween, all Hallows' Eve.
00:00:49
Speaker
Samhain if you're Irish. We are, of course, gonna be celebrating the night that is October 31st for all the ghouls and goblins out there.
Exploring Witch Doctors
00:01:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Halloween episode of Nada Pundit.
00:01:04
Speaker
on this episode we will be covering two main topics Connor witch doctors and exorcisms oh okay right I've got a few ideas of potential witch doctor names but exorcisms now that I'm curious about and for the exorcisms you'll have to wait a little bit because we're gonna start off with witch doctors so
00:01:27
Speaker
We're going to start off with one of the names you're probably thinking of because it's recent. So it's 2022. We're in a little town of Rossy-en-Brie, just outside of Paris. Lovely this time of year. Yes. Is man by the name of Grant? He's making the headlines for a magical reason.
00:01:48
Speaker
he's a witch doctor and or apparently they call them a maribou in France but i think that's kind of like an islamic witch doctor or something i'm not sure i'm not sure the difference not sure the religious connotations but don't offend anyone but yeah we're gonna go cleano witch doctor yeah um but he has a big following between uh within the french african community and if you're wondering where does he tie in
00:02:17
Speaker
Basically, Paul Pogba and his family are accused of using Grant for his services. Now, when we say witch doctor, are we talking? Are they, can anyone, can I just go, I'm now the local witch doctor, or is this like within a community, is this a very kind of prestigious thing?
00:02:40
Speaker
Um, both. So pretty much anybody can say it, but it's until you kind of within your community prove yourself. So like if you are, think of it as like a, the cure in Ireland, like you have the lads licking your elbow cause you got to burn off the range. Um, it's kind of like that. Like you can be some outlet licking an elbow, but if it doesn't work, you're not going to get famous. You're just the town crazy. Yeah. Um, so Mateus Pogba.
00:03:11
Speaker
Paul Pogba's brother. He was a defender as well. I believe he played up in Scotland for a little while. He was put in jail for extorting Paul. Kind brother.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah. And over a series of videos, he spilled the beans on where he accused Paul of shelling out about four million quid to grande since 2015.
Paul Pogba and Witch Doctor Controversy
00:03:42
Speaker
Stop. So 2015 to 2022. Four million, did you say? Four million. Four
00:03:48
Speaker
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
00:04:19
Speaker
Paul Pogba asked Grant to protect him from injuries, to help France win the 2018 World Cup, and to tame PSG's Kylian Mbappe in a Champions League showdown so that he could perform better. Now, this sounds like something the sun wrote, but, you know. Yeah, but aside from the injuries,
00:04:46
Speaker
the man delivered. Fair enough. But now Paul has said a completely different story, including to the French authorities, saying that he'd only consulted Grant to get some charity points in Africa to help big him up in
00:05:08
Speaker
in the native country where his family came from, Guinea. Paul accused Matthias and the witch doctor of extorting him by basically trying to put out bad press and getting him associated with it.
00:05:29
Speaker
So this is all a bit mad and I don't think it's actually ever really come to a conclusion. So Paul Pogba has been accused of basically spending millions on this kind of stuff. I wouldn't put a person. I wouldn't. No. At this stage, the man needs something to work.
00:05:44
Speaker
But this sounds a bit wild, but in Africa and France, this is, I don't wanna say commonplace. It's not unusual. It's not unusual to be loved by anyone. So like, PSG, before the money, before Ronaldinho, when I was only like Pauletta, back in 1997, once sought the help of a witch doctor named CD to win a Champions League
Football and Superstitions
00:06:12
Speaker
game,
00:06:12
Speaker
And after a series of consultations and payments, he predicted that they're going to win 5-0 in a Champions League knockout game. And gave them the details of who's going to score the fourth goal and the minute of it. So he went deep on his prediction. And he got it right.
00:06:30
Speaker
whole thing I'm not so sure about the score score but he definitely got the victory correct and then there was another team called and Chatteru which would be for most of us a kind of a well-known Academy and I think was this a candidate came true there
00:06:54
Speaker
Was it them or was this Josh Maja? Anyway, they were very, very well known. They're only in like the French tour division or something like that. It's Canty. Yeah, that rings a bell. That's Canty. Yeah.
00:07:10
Speaker
good reputation within the country and they have actually used it as well and they their owners would bring witch doctors the games and stuff to try and give them a little bit of a
00:07:26
Speaker
and one of the names just before we started recording that you suggested for witch doctors being one that's slightly more recognizable would be Emmanuel Adebayor big man like the man like he was
00:07:42
Speaker
eccentric and eclectic career. He's one we'll all remember for the sprinting, for his terrible move to Real Madrid, or his terrible move to Crystal Palace, or his terrible move to Paraguay. And also of course being Togo's probably best but ever player. But he once claimed that his mother was practicing black magic on him.
00:08:10
Speaker
Did he go into details? He did. So his family accused him of kicking his mother out of the house and at that time they claimed, so this is back in 2014, and they claimed that she was then earning ยฃ1 per day from selling tomatoes. At this time he was a Tottenham, having moved from Man City. He was on the big money, yeah. I was one of the biggest moves of his career.
00:08:39
Speaker
About ยฃ170k a week in pounds back in 2014. Tough life. Very tough.
00:08:47
Speaker
And he accused his family of performing juju on him. But that his family then accused him of being brainwashed by Islamic spiritual healers. So we're getting all sides of the spectrum being covered on this show today. We're getting it from all areas, yeah. And apparently the people that were brainwashing him accused his bad form for Spurs on the Black Magic.
00:09:15
Speaker
which is just a bit wild like this was very very much considered to be like sidebar on this do you believe in it no yeah i don't either but i do this also plays into a lot of athletes are superstitious a lot of people are but a lot of athletes and i think if you go to this guy and i know four million for pogmas ends i can absolute
00:09:40
Speaker
bucket load of cash but if he's making a hundred off the performances that apparently this guy's giving them maybe pays off but yeah okay good to see we're on the same front yeah i wouldn't be one for any kind of spirituality or anything like that but i'm fascinated by it all i'm also fascinated by the likes of ghosts don't believe in them but i'm always fascinated by the
00:10:02
Speaker
the phenomenon that is. And like that kind of stuff always always fascinates me. Speaking of ghosts, we're going to go on to exorcisms now. So earlier this year, Lazio's president had to come out. So this is Claudio Latifo had to come out in the Italian press and deny that the club had got an exorcism.
00:10:30
Speaker
So they went on a bad run of form earlier on this year and they got knocked out of the Europa League to Sevilla, which Sevilla owned the Europa League. So like, that's not a bad result. And there was an injury crisis with like, Wallace, Lewis Fleetpage, Orton Lukaku all getting injured. And yeah, they were accused of getting an exorcist in to try and cure the bad omens and the bad luck that was going on around them.
00:11:00
Speaker
But they denied it. And when you're going to deny something, you got to do it with a good line. And if nothing else, Latio got a good line. They released a statement. So basically the president had a mate who was a priest and he invited him in. That was that was what they were basically saying. But how they opened their statement was, unlike others, Latio does not need magicians or exorcists. That's fantastic.
00:11:28
Speaker
Like, if you're gonna deny something, that's the way to do it.
00:11:32
Speaker
Well, I tell you one thing that's just come to my mind is with all this kind of paranormal. I think it's fair to say, looking back on Newcastle over the last, I don't know, 15 years, we've had what can only be called ghosts at the back. We were fairly see-through and run-through, but that's for another day. Hit me with some more now. Come on. I'm getting into this now. So, Oxford United.
00:12:02
Speaker
2001 they brought in the Bishop of Oxford to lift a gypsy curse from the Kasam Stadium. So it was thought that the curse was placed on Minchi Farm which was the location of where the stadium was going to be built and
00:12:22
Speaker
under the the owner at the time, Mr. Firoz Kassim, I believe is how it was named, they had bought the land and it took them about five years to try and get the stadium built and it was meant to be within a certain budget and it was meant to be within a certain time but everything kept happening to block it from that from happening and ended up causing them 15 million pounds.
00:12:50
Speaker
for Oxford in 2001. That was like, I think the world transfer at that time was 10. So like imagine now a team trip. Yeah. Like imagine Portsmouth now trying to spend 200 million on a stadium. Like it ain't going to happen. Yeah.
00:13:10
Speaker
So it was reported at the time that the Bishop of Oxford, the right Reverend Richard Harries, had exercised evil from the ground, commanding the curse to go. The chaplain at the club had actually invited him to come in to cast out the curse while he was blessing the pitch when it was being opened. And
00:13:35
Speaker
basically what the reason they were actually blessing the picture was that weddings and other kind of religious ceremonies could happen there and they could make make money. And the chaplain said that the farmer who originally owned the land had allowed gypsies to stay on it in return for doing farm work and for harvesting and hay making and kind of jobs around the place. Yeah. Yeah. You're kind of old worldly way of doing things. And then.
00:14:04
Speaker
when the field was sold to the football club, the gypsies were banned from using it and then cast a curse. You don't mess with gypsies, you do not mess with gypsies. We've all watched Peaky Blinders. Yep.
00:14:17
Speaker
like that necklace. So the chaplain said, I'm going to just read the quote here, I do know that sometimes as written in the scriptures people put curses on other people and this has to be taken seriously. You could just regard it as an old wives tale or you could take it seriously but Oxford United's history of bad luck speaks for itself.
00:14:38
Speaker
There's nothing lost by having an exorcism, and it's better to be safe than sorry. I'm not saying all gypsies have malicious intentions, but it was best to bring in somebody to lift the curse.
Haunted Stadiums and Ghost Stories
00:14:49
Speaker
The priest then later denied it, that he said- They love doing that, don't they? They just love being like, it wasn't me, shaggy style. So he said he had come in and he had conducted a ceremony, but it was only a blessing.
00:15:04
Speaker
His spokesman said that what the bishop did was what many clergy do, which is bless the ground. He used a prayer which said, bless this place and protect it from evil. Maybe a little calmy, maybe a little calmy. Like that's kind of exorcise-y. All I want to know is how much did he get for this? It was all donations. Four million I imagine, yeah it was.
00:15:37
Speaker
But Cassim the owner eventually sold the club but kept ownership of the stadium. But he sold the club as they were slipping into the then conference league in 2006 and it took them up until 2010 to even reach the football league again.
00:15:58
Speaker
Okay. And since they came back, they've been trying to sell the stadium. And as of this year, they still haven't been able to get rid of it. So maybe the Reverend should have done an exorcism because they're obviously not going the way that they wanted to. It doesn't look good for them. No, but this is not the only going at stadium that we're going to talk about today because I am going to do a listicle. This is very much for cut downs.
00:16:29
Speaker
five most haunted stadiums in World of Football. So number five, the Estadio de Drago for FC Porto.
00:16:41
Speaker
In 2012, Porter defeated PSG in a Champions League match, and Jamez Rodriguez scored the only goal and ran to celebrate with the home fans. Amid the celebrations, it looked like there was a ghost celebrating with them and appears to show a shadow of a man who was wearing clothes from the mid-1900s. So the Portuguese press called it the ghost of the Drago, and basically, rumours have gone around since, saying that people have had all these
00:17:07
Speaker
sightings and have had all these experiences and it was debunked pretty quickly when the photographer who actually had printed the photo came with a photo of an old man sitting in the same spot and was basically just cold. I was going to say it was either that or a pasty Irish dude knocking around the place. But the fans still
00:17:35
Speaker
hold it that like, no, no, no, we've had experiences, we've had experiences. Who's to say? We are. The photographer took a photo of an old dude. I love that.
00:17:48
Speaker
Number four, St Mary's in Southampton. OK. So when they'd moved to St Mary's in 2001, this is Southampton, it was built for about ยฃ32 million. And they'd moved from the Dell, which was their home for 103 years. Institution of a place, yeah. Absolutely. But it doubled their capacity, which was progress. It was built on the site of a graveyard.
00:18:15
Speaker
Oh Christ. And it said that the spirits of the people that were buried there were haunting them when they moved for that 2001-2002 season. Who the hell is that legal?
00:18:28
Speaker
Like, when does grave digging become archaeology? Yeah, one man's, yeah, okay. So that season they had a terrible start and Relication looked pretty much nailed on as they got 10 points in the first 14 matches which obviously got the manager of the sack after like
00:18:51
Speaker
six months in church and and basically rumors spread that the spirits were taking the revenge for being excavated out of it and The belief grew so strong that apparently the club Called an actual pagan white witch to rid evil from the ground. So not an exorcism But kinda each each story you tell me right of these exorcism, right? Can you imagine it being the guy going?
00:19:20
Speaker
lads or ladies i've got an idea and they're like oh yeah go on connor yeah go ahead witch doctor or exorcist there's like any reasonable person would be like are you okay he's lost it if in fairness if you had suggested this to me i i would imagine spirits were on the mind but not the ones that you'd be thinking of number three
00:19:50
Speaker
Highbury and Arsenal up their home until 2006 when the Emirates was built.
00:19:58
Speaker
So we're going to go way back in history here. So Herbert Chapman was known for basically being one of the most foremost thinkers in football. And I'm pretty sure he practically invented the WM formation, which kind of legitimized having defenders. Okay. So you'd have like a tree at the back, two as defensive midfielders, two attacking midfielders and tree up front. Yeah.
00:20:24
Speaker
and he took over when the club were practically nothing and brought them
00:20:33
Speaker
relative success, but brought football on more importantly. And just as they were becoming into the most successful era, he actually died of pneumonia at the age of 55. This was despite having a severe cold and feeling uneasy, Chapman dragged himself to see three matches in one week before he died. And this actually led to his death.
00:21:00
Speaker
and until Arson moved out of Highbreed it was reported that late at night you could hear his restless ghost pacing up and down the halls. I kind of like that one there, not gonna lie. Like that's not wishing it on the man but you could imagine a similar tale with Or Trafford and Alex Ferguson. They're the kind of ones, I don't know where Stan and Ghost and all of that but I
00:21:30
Speaker
Have you ever sat in a football stadium when there's no one really there? I have for media stuff. So that's what it means. So off the back of media events or professional gigs, really. I've had the chance to sit in a couple of stadiums when they turn off the stadium lights and there's a couple of people around maybe having a couple of pints.
00:21:57
Speaker
Swear to God you feel like you can hear fans from yesteryear I don't know whether it's just your mind going all the games have been played here, but That one is the only one so far. I'm like I could buy into that
00:22:10
Speaker
with the feeling of unease, a little bit of a humble brag, but when I was younger, I got a private tour of the Vatican. Oh, Christ! Really Christ? By an Irish priest who was living there and he was, I believe, basically kind of a potential future colonel. Really nice dude. And, you know, underneath where there's all the tombs? The crib, like, yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I just got myself and my family just got to wander around there. Surely people don't get to do that like outside of like that kind of thing. Yeah, it's it's not not too often that it kind of happens and it's definitely kind of like this history here. It's one of them kind of feelings. Yeah, this is old. Number two, Gazi Stadium in Kabul.
00:23:06
Speaker
So this is where we're going to take a turn for a little bit more kind of like. So this football stadium has been used more for public execution. I just thought that was where this was going. I did remember this name, yeah. So the convicts at the time were forced to kneel before the Taliban and were executed in the stadium.
00:23:31
Speaker
And the arms and legs of those who were punished were apparently hung from the posts for the public to see. And it's believed that the stadium is now haunted by the spirit of these convicts. It's since been before the Taliban took over again, it's been refurbished and modernized, but people still won't go near it. Speaking about it, I'm just going to quote an Afghan journalist here.
00:24:01
Speaker
There was a thief who stole something from his village that cut his right hand here, right here. A man and woman were having illegal sexual relations. They were caught, brought to the stadium, given 100 lashes each and told they were going to marry each other.
00:24:17
Speaker
There was people beheaded and shot, and the Afghans will never forget these bad memories. And there's hundreds of these stories of Kalashnikov being used on people. And US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, along with the leaders in Afghanistan, refurbished it to be a 25,000-seat stadium in an attempt to erase this history like it's the kind of thing that should be forgotten.
00:24:44
Speaker
and women are usually asked to remain as far away from the stadium in general. So obviously there's political and kind of very real reasons to stay away from the stadium but they do believe that it is haunted by them spirits as well. Well I think if anywhere was going to be haunted it'll be there as horrific and I bloody well hope number one on this list is more positive than that.
00:25:13
Speaker
Of course it is. It is the stadium of light in Sunderland. Or as we all like to call it up in another part of the northeast, it begins with S and ends with E. In April of 2005, two background staff claimed to have seen an unusual black shape in a dimly lit corridor. Many argued it was just another person walking by and nothing serious.
00:25:39
Speaker
But not long after that, Irish striker Stephen Elliott also reported having seen the ghost, and that sparked talks of the stadium being haunted. It's believed that it could be the spirit of an 18th century wrecker spotty.
00:25:56
Speaker
But nobody knows why he'd be roaming around the stadium in life. And in 2016, while some fans were watching Monday Night Football on Sky, they were left stunned as they spotted a groundsman working on the pitch. But he disappeared into thin air seconds later. I don't know if you've ever seen that one. I've never actually seen that.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, so it was... I'll send it to you after we put it in the show notes or something. But basically, whatever way it worked, it just kind of faded. I think most people kind of assumed it was just a camera glitch, but what if it's not? What if the light in the stadium of light is a light to another world?
Mysterious Football Goals
00:26:35
Speaker
Well, one thing on the topic of ghosts that I have to bring in is, do you remember the ghost goal? Do you remember that?
00:26:42
Speaker
Oh, Lampert. Yeah, like it's or there's just so many instances in football where ball goes in there and you're like, huh? How did that happen? Well, sure. This is the original one back in the day of Dennis Long, the 1966 World Cup. That shouldn't have been at all.
00:27:06
Speaker
But there you have it, our Halloween episode. You've had witch doctors, exorcisms and ghost sightings. You've had Emmanuel Adebayor and Steven Elliott and Herbert Chapman in the mix.
Conclusion and Reflections
00:27:18
Speaker
Connor, what do you think? Are you a believer? Are you spooked out this Halloween?
00:27:25
Speaker
I'm going to say, which doctors know? Exorcisms of stadiums, I'm kind of buying into it, you know? You've kind of won me over on that one. I don't really know if I believe in ghosts, but I'm also kind of terrified to not in case they come to my gaffe. But that was amazing mate, cheers. It was really interesting diving in deep into that. And if we find that clip, we must stick it up on social.
00:27:51
Speaker
Absolutely and if you would like to leave us any messages or anything like that just whip out your Ouija board some of the spirits will get to us and we hope you enjoy your Halloween night go party but remember there's always somebody watching I'm not into podcasts
00:28:24
Speaker
What a hit! Back of the net